Great weapons.

-In general, other than Anti armour weapons, why did people elect to use two-handed melee weapons that weren't polearms in pitched battles, and how common was it that a soldier would favour a Non-polearm two handed melee weapon over a polearm (Anti-armour or otherwise) (I imagine it's mostly the rich and well armoured who would consider giving up that sweet reach, but still...)

(I knew about the double pay thing, but there's really a lot of answers to why they could've gotten double pay... )

Was the greatsword a good general purpose weapon during war? The -poleaxe if heavily armoured/spear if lightly armoured- argument doesn't really hold much to the realities of battlefields (IE nobody's plans for fair fights) Was it's defensive use/crowd busting powers more due to it's deadliness in such situations or rather the intimidation/move away from with sharp swingy thing...

The forms video was helpful but doesn't entirely satisfy my need to know about the subject (And I'm very much on the fence with those full body spins... I almost get it, but Yeesh) It's helpful but i've got a massive 'Tell me more' button I'm smashing in my head. I need more context; Setting, opponents, allies... This video shows me that maybe the weapon's pretty good in a disordered fight.



RE Mountain warfare;
Let's say
-early 1500's medieval technology, but guns are rare and quite behind in this part of the world.
-A Culture was driven into a mountain range by surrounding nations. The mountain group are disliked for their ethnicity and faith. Mountain group has been in this mountain range for a thousand years. Sometimes they push into the lowlands, sometimes the lowlanders push into the mountains
-Mountain group are excellent craftsmen and warriors are celebrated in their culture.
-Though obviously mountain fortresses are absurdly good, they can't always rely on them; Their food needs to be collected.


Ranged weapons were an obvious choice (Not sure of which ranged weapon) and formations would be dissuaded... but I don't think an entire army of lightly armoured sharpshooters sounds viable. Do the rich fight the same way as the poor? Is armour really avoided so much or do they just lessen it to 3/4 stuff or such, or is there a particular style of armour that'd be good for this situation?